When it comes to personalized, targeted marketing, email is still a major channel of communication. Using your customers’ inboxes, you can steadily build a relationship with your brand by sending targeted, relevant communications to the right people at the right time.
Of course, there are a number of other channels gathering buzz, particularly SMS marketing. While it has a higher cost than email, the statistics around its penetration – 90 percent of SMS messages are read within 30 seconds of delivery – are compelling.
In the battle of email vs. SMS though, the smartest marketers aren’t picking sides, but using email and SMS together to create omnichannel journeys for their customers.
In this post, we’ll look at some of the most effective ways you can utilize SMS within your email marketing journeys and campaigns.
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Boost conversion with strategic SMS follow-ups
SMS can be a powerful tool to drive conversion, especially when deployed in conjunction with a strong email campaign. The attention-grabbing nature of SMS can work well for reinforcing successful messaging and driving conversion in customer segments.
For example, if you’re sending out an email with a special offer, you could consider sending a follow-up SMS after 24 hours to customers who have opened or clicked your email, but not yet converted. They’ve signaled interest in your offer and reinforcing it via SMS is a great way to place the offer front and centre, with the benefit of a stronger read rate than you can probably expect from a follow-up email.
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Build stronger relationships with your VIPs
Some marketers have historically shied away from SMS, believing the channel to be too intrusive for promotional communications. However, customers don’t necessarily feel that way. Seventy percent of consumers think SMS is a good way for businesses to contact them. If used judiciously, the intimate nature of SMS can actually help you build a stronger relationship with your customers.
Consider your VIPs – these customers are clearly engaged and interested in your brand. Why not offer them something special, such as early access to a sale or specific event, or a targeted offer via SMS?
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Compliance and SMS marketing in 2019
While preparing your SMS campaign, you will need to consider the upcoming changes that are likely to impact your SMS marketing in the coming months. From the pending removal of shared short codes to the addition of required approvals and new carrier fees for long code messaging – the industry is about to change significantly. As always, we recommend that you provision a dedicated short code to ensure the best deliverability and lowest filtering possible. This is now more important than ever with the carriers scrutinizing all marketing content being sent through their networks.
SMS compliance is a complex and evolving topic. Over the next few months, it promises to get even more complex as carriers introduce new messaging products, as well as new restrictions on certain types of messaging.
What’s next?
As noted, the smartest marketers aren’t picking sides – they utilize both SMS and emails for driving conversions. Luckily for them, marketing platforms such as Ongage enable management of both email and SMS campaigns from a single dashboard, all with a breadth of analytic and segmentation tools.
About MessageMedia
MessageMedia is a global business messaging company with over 40,000 customers across US, Australia, UK and New Zealand, sending over two billion messages per year. Customers use MessageMedia for marketing and loyalty messages, appointment and payment reminders and general customer communications.